


Going Steady

by sawbones



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, M/M, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 00:24:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11279895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawbones/pseuds/sawbones
Summary: Falling in love without the fireworks can be just as sweet.





	Going Steady

**Author's Note:**

> No wild plot, no drama, just two grown gradually falling in love (and massaging each other's egos a little). 
> 
> I just started playing Overwatch during the anniversary event (and instantly fell in love with Reinhardt, of course) so my grasp on the lore is tenuous at best - it's not massively relevant to the story, but please excuse any errors.

Hanzo had never been shielded from a single thing in his life; not from a physical blow, not a cutting word, not a harsh decision or harsher realities. He was the eldest son, the big brother, once the heir to a great empire. He was a lone mercenary, a hard man to like and a harder man to love, so he had been told. No-one had ever put themselves between him and the consequences of his actions or the expectations of his position, or even the unfortunate accidents of the world. He had never expected them to. He wasn’t sure if he ever wanted them to.

So when there was a voice in his ear telling him there was a shrinking window for the team to push up on the objective, he could feel the pressure bearing down on him. This was his first operation with the unlikely organisation who has bought up his contracts, offered him his chance of redemption; this was his trial by fire. There would be no saving grace if he made a mistake. He had spent several weeks trying to naturalise himself within the group, though it didn't come easily to him - he had never worked with a team before. He was reticent by nature, far more so than any other member bar the commander himself. They knew more of his story than they did of him, it showed in the way they treated him. Hanzo was not sure how, or even if to remedy this.

The nature of their battle was unfamiliar to him as well. He was used to stealthy operations, solo missions, high-stakes, low violence. An arrow fired from a building across the street, a room cleared before the last man can turn around. He was not a soldier. He had never been on the frontline, he has never tasted  _ true _ warfare - tanks in the street, heavy artillery, high calibre rounds that can punch through walls, tech worth the GDP of a small country. For the last century or so, most of the Shimada empire’s battles had been fought and won over white-tablecloths in the VIP rooms of Michelin star restaurants. 

He checked his six, checked his twelve, checked all the hands of the clock, his head swivelling as he readjusted his grip on his bow and prepared to move. One of the benefits of operating in such an environment was that his arrows were never heard over the gunfire; he rarely drew attention to himself so he could move quite freely. He was clear, and jinked down the staircase behind him and out onto the street below. He slipped from the cover of car to battered car, head low, eyes forward. He darted round the corner onto the next street, and the world exploded.

Hanzo thought it was a small explosives device at first - the noise was deafening, the wall where he had been disappeared in a hail of concrete chips, but when he landed face-down behind another vehicle, it was of his own volition, not because of a blast-wave. Two realisations hit at once: firstly, it was a mini-gun, not a rocket launcher. He could hear the idle spinning of its barrel, the gunman waiting for him to dart into view again. Secondly, he was fast but not fast enough: he had been hit. Not badly, not fatally, not yet; he tried to put pressure on his thigh, and the blood seeped sluggishly through his fingers. It burned more than it hurt, the adrenaline doing its job. He lifted his fingers, gingerly pushed aside the shredded cloth of his trousers. His skin was similarly tattered, but the red mess beneath couldn’t be more than half an inch deep and the bleeding was steady - not arterial.

The minigun whirred back to life; there was a squeal of metal and the vehicle he was behind shifted and creaked under the barrage. It seemed the gunman had realised he was not coming out. Hanzo swore under his breath as he worked through his very short list of options. There was nowhere for him to go. The street isn’t bare of cover but he would be torn to pieces before he could make it. He twisted his neck, tried to peek through the car windows to see what angle he’d need for a scattershot arrow to possibly buy him a few seconds, but the glass was punched out instantly, forcing him back down. He couldn’t risk even sticking an arm out to draw, nor would it be feasible to sit and wait for help either since he’d scouted so far ahead of the team, and that minigun would chew straight through the car in less than a minute, including the time it would take to reload. It could have all been avoided if he’d just remembered to use the radar projectiles Overwatch had provided him.

There was only one thing Hanzo could think to do, something which he had been deliberately avoiding. He’d been told to keep it for the utmost emergencies, or until it was part of the mission details directly, or else they would lessen its tactical usefulness and an entire underworld of bad, bad men would know who was now working for Overwatch. This, Hanzo assumed, qualified as an emergency, albeit a weak and embarrassing one. 

He turned as quickly but carefully as his wounded leg would allow him, and drew an arrow from his quiver. He nocked and pulled it, point resting against the lip of the broken window while he contorted to stay out of view. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, drawing deeply from the well of power that yawned within his chest. For a second, there was nothing; Hanzo’s heart dropped to his stomach, wondering if his dragons had abandoned him for his sheer stupidity, but then the tingling in the tips of his fingers began, blue sparks along his skin, gathering force until--

Another car plowed into the one he was hidden behind - no, not another car, it was  _ Reinhardt _ . He’d charged into it hard enough to sending it skidding down the road, shedding metal as it went. He took what had to be several dozen rounds from the minigun straight to his chest before he managed to get his force field up, sparking flying like festival fireworks.

“ _ I _ will be your shield, my friend,” the giant bellowed, and Hanzo’s bow went slack in his fingers for a second as all the focus he had gathered shattered and blew away. The first crack in Reinhardt’s shield brought him back to reality. He lunged to the side, just shy of the great hulking cuirass, drew his arrow and loosed it as soon as he had his shot. It found its mark; the minigun barrage suddenly swung wide, cutting a great gouge up the wall before it stopped dead, barrel spinning but the finger gone slack on the trigger. 

Reinhardt dropped his shield and then his hammer, and had one giant hand out in time to catch Hanzo just as he began to tip over - he had momentarily forgotten about his leg and tried to put pressure on it. He shouted something in what Hanzo assumed was German, and within seconds Dr Ziegler was at their side. His thigh was patched up in seconds, no scar, no pains, only fast-drying blood and tattered cloth. It was another thing he wasn’t used to. Reinhardt had saved him from his mistake; Mercy had saved him from his wound. He hoped such easily earned trust would not make him careless.

 

\--

 

“I never took you for a tea drinking man,” Hanzo said measuredly when Reinhardt decided to join him on the slanted sub-roof he used in lieu of a porch. He was up there partly to relax, partly to hide - he’d been avoiding the others since they’d returned from the mission the day before: he still felt vaguely embarrassed about his performance. 

It was an awkward climb for Hanzo, so he had no idea how Reinhardt had managed it; he didn’t even appear out of breath. Still, it was apparent he wasn’t the only one who thought the view was worth the trouble, an unfettered vista of the ocean and there on the horizon, edged in red by the setting sun, was the northern shore of Africa. 

Reinhardt hummed in acknowledgement, but said nothing further as he busied himself unpacking and pouring a tiny cup of tea from his thermos, hot enough that it was still steaming in the warm Gibraltan evening. It would have been a small cup for a normal sized man, but it looked like a thimble in his hands. He drank it black, Hanzo noted, and quietly approved. He wondered if it was sweetened too.

“Coffee, maybe, or beer. Not tea,” Hanzo went on. The silence didn’t bother him in the slightest but he still felt some obligation to make up for Reinhardt’s unusual quietness, like there was an expectant hole and someone had to fill it.

“There are times for beer and times for tea, and this, my friend--” Reinhardt said eventually as he settled with his cup in hand and his back against the wall, closing his eyes as he seemed to soak up the warm, rosy light, “-- is the  _ perfect _ time for tea.”

Hanzo nodded, looked away. He wondered if this was Reinhardt’s way of checking up on him. He also wondered if he should thank the man for surely saving his life. Instead, he said nothing, and raised his own cup in a modest toast to the sun.

 

\--

 

The weeks rolled by and life moved on, though not exactly at the pace Hanzo would have liked. Another aspect of working as part of a roster was that he did not get to pick and chose when and where he worked, as he did as a mercenary. He was either needed, or he wasn’t. It took a little getting used to when he was left behind, particularly since he didn’t have much else in his life to pass the time when he was base-locked. He wasn’t a scientist, he wasn’t an engineer, he didn’t have high-enough clearance to access any files worth reading. There were only so many hours he could pass in awkward company, making equally awkward small talk or listening in on other people’s real conversations.

He spent most of his time reading, or more often, training. Martial arts, swordplay, archery, simple callisthenics - it didn’t matter. He would spar and spot with anyone who would agree to it. He had not been on a frontline mission since that first time, only minor jobs, and though ultimately his teammate’s opinions mattered less than the final outcome which had been successful, he didn’t not wish for anyone to think him weak or a slacker. 

He found it was a good way to work off his frustration, of which he had a growing abundance in recent times. More than once, he would lose track of the hour and work through meals, through meetings, even late into the night without meaning to, which was the case on that particular night. The only reason he noticed was because of the trembling of his hands, both from exhaustion and hunger. He frowned at his chafed, shaking fingers: he was too tired to cook, and it was too late anyway. He decided he would have a cup of tea to calm himself, and then go to bed. He had to be awake in a few hours anyway.

The halls were as quiet as he expected them to be after midnight, lights dimmed, nothing but unobtrusive cleaning droids polishing the floors. It was almost peaceful, or as close to it as it could get in the base. It made the wall of sensations that hit him when he opened the kitchen door that much more jarring: heat from the stove, half a dozen pots on the burners, something in the oven; the enticing smell of roasting meat and whatever else was being cooked; the sound of utensils on metal, pot lids bubbling, and above it all, Reinhardt singing. Or humming, rather. Hanzo didn’t recognise the song but it sounded like it had a lot of trumpets in it. He immediately began to backtrack, but it was too late, he had been spotted.

“Hanzo! Come in, my friend - don’t mind me, I’ll be done in a moment,” Reinhardt said, somehow without even looking at who had came through the door. 

“I did not realise you had returned from your mission,” Hanzo said, keeping his voice light as he reluctantly entered the maelstrom. The old King’s Row team had been gone for nearly a week. The base had been curiously empty with some of its biggest personalities missing.

“We just arrived back. The others have went to bed but I am ravenous,” Reinhardt said, pausing to sip something off a spoon, “MREs have improved since my time in the forces but you can’t beat a good homecooked meal.”

Hanzo’s neglected stomach yowled noisily at the suggestion, but he ignored it and hoped Reinhardt would as well. He filled the kettle with some water, put in on to boil. He fetched a cup from the cupboard, and on reflection, took a second one too, “It went well, I assume?”

“As well as can be expected,” Reinhardt said cheerfully, which presumably meant ‘perfectly, and without so much as a broken nail’, “You seem tired, are you feeling alright?”

“Just a long day in the training room,” Hanzo said, waiting patiently for the tea to steep, “Nothing a little _ gyokuro _ won’t cure.”

Tea strained and stirred, Hanzo turned to the table with the two cups in hand to see Reinhardt already sitting - with a second plate set opposite him, piled with food: roast pork, boiled potatoes, steamed fresh vegetables, and some sort of thick white gravy. He was so surprised that he accidentally spilled a little of the hot tea over his hand, but managed to contain his grimace. He sat down at the place laid for him, set Reinhardt’s cup at his elbow. He glanced at his plate, and noticed that Reinhardt’s portion was far smaller than Hanzo’s - he might eat more than a normal man, but he had clearly not been cooking for two.

Hanzo flushed with an unfamiliar feeling, one of both shame and gratitude and...something else. He pinched the slab of pork between his knife and fork and slipped it back onto Reinhardt’s plate, leaving himself with an ample helping of potatoes and veg.

“I am a vegetarian,” he said, avoiding Reinhardt’s eye when the man began to protest. He was not, and Reinhardt almost certainly knew that, but he didn’t argue any further. Hanzo was almost as grateful for that as he was for the meal.

 

\--

 

It was Hanzo’s pride that walked him into Reinhardt’s trap in the form of an innocently offered game of chess. Reinhardt matched him move for move; he stopped shy of embarrassing him outright. Hanzo was humbled, but still felt cheated somehow. He suggested they played igo instead, and the result was much the same; another game, and in chu shogi, Reinhardt’s lion shredded the board. Hanzo asked with as much cool indifference as he could manage, how exactly someone like him came to be so good at such games; Reinhardt side-stepped the thinly veiled insult, and admitted he had spent a lot of time in a lot of bases with not much else to do but shuffle pieces round a board. From the mouth of any other man, it would have been false modesty. 

Hanzo tried a pack of cards instead. They played snap, though only once. He might have had the reflexes, but he had neither the hands nor the furniture to spare. Neither of them had any idea what Go Fish was, exactly, but they made a brave attempt at it that killed half an hour. McCree cleared the pot in the kitchen-table poker tournament they got roped into, but at least he expected that. It didn’t annoy him any less, however. 

He managed to hold out longer than Reinhardt, at least. His poker face was abysmal. 

 

\--

 

“There is a saying,” Hanzo began slowly, savouring the heat of the cup balanced in his open hand as he collected himself. Their argument had been over nothing at all, but still Hanzo had let himself get too worked up by it. Reinhardt’s stubbornness would not give way to his anger; there was no point to flaring up at him.

“Could it be ‘to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail’?” Reinhardt interrupted. He laughed at the sharp look Hanzo cut him, his impression of serenity evaporating as quickly as it had came, “Yes, I might have heard that one before. I suppose I am asking for it, considering my weapon of choice.”

“Well, it’s true,” Hanzo said, a little more defensively than was called for.

“It can be,” Reinhardt said, “But what does than mean about the man with the bow?”

“With too much power, everything appears as something that can only be solved with brute force,” Hanzo paused with his tea half-way to his mouth; he lowered it again, frowned slightly as he considered his answer for several long seconds, “So, with too much focus, everything appears as a target that can only be solved with perfect precision?”

“It  _ means _ that at the end of the day, your bow is just your bow, and my hammer is just my hammer, and clever words are sometimes just that: words,” Reinhardt said, nodding in agreement with himself, “You can find whatever meaning you’re looking for in proverbs if you twist them enough. They can help, but they can also distract you from the things that matter.”

“You are skirting dangerously close to wisdom of your own there, Wilhelm,” Hanzo said with a reluctant amusement.

“If it’s wisdom you’re looking for, listen to your heart instead of your head for a change. That’s where you’ll find the truest wisdom of all,” Reinhardt said. Hanzo lifted his chin, regarded him with an arched brow. 

“Truly, you have a poet’s soul,” he said, and sipped his tea. It only took a moment for Reinhardt to realise he was poking fun at him - he was getting faster at catching on.

“A poet’s soul and a bloody big hammer,” he said with a bark of laughter, hand like a dinner plate coming to clap Hanzo’s shoulder; he was expecting it this time, used to it in a way that meant he didn’t spill a single drop. He very nearly smiled.

 

\--

 

There was something vaguely surreal about meeting Reinhardt in the practice range, like seeing a wild animal on a city street. Hanzo was there almost daily, and he’d never met him once. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d ever even seen him hold a gun. The one he selected from the weapon’s locker was more like a hand-cannon than a pistol, but Hanzo supposed it might have been the only handgun that could fit his bear-paws. 

His interested piqued, Hanzo un-nocked his arrow and came a little closer, bow still in hand; he managed to suppress his flinch when Reinhardt fired, six ear-bursting shots in careful succession. Only one shot had found the center ring of the target; three clipped the edges, two missed altogether. He realised with an unfamiliar and belated rush of affection, that Reinhardt still closed his blind eye when he aimed down the sights.

“It seems I am getting a little rusty,” he said. He frowned but didn’t seem too disheartened, and Hanzo had the vague impression he would have said it whether he was there to hear or not.

“Why bother?” Hanzo asked, “If you lose your hammer, you would be better off with your fists.”

“You are probably right, my friend. Still, weapon proficiency is an excellent skill to keep sharp! I remember that much from my soldiering days,” Reinhardt said. He reloaded the gun with a measured slowness, not entirely unfamiliar with the motion but obviously out of practice, “I can’t even blame my eye: I’ve always been something of a poor shot.”

Hanzo didn’t believe it for a second; you didn’t become a soldier of such distinction without being able to shoot straight. He inclined his head in a silent acknowledgement, not entirely sure what comment Reinhardt was inviting. His gaze licked over the weapon in his hands. After a moment, he offered the one in his own.

“Try my bow,” he said. Reinhardt’s brows jumped.

“I couldn’t,” he said with genuine apprehension, though he did sway forward like he wanted to take it, “No-- I could never forgive myself if I broke it.”

“You won’t,” Hanzo said, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips, “It is far more resilient than it looks, and while you may be powerful, you are not careless. Try it. A single shot.”

Reinhardt pursed his lips, then flicked the safety of his own weapon and sat it aside. He took the bow with both hands; it was nearly as tall as Hanzo himself, but he still managed to make it look like a flimsy toy. When Hanzo presented him with the single arrow, he took that too, but seemed to be waiting for instruction.

“You have watched me draw my bow, Wilhelm; you know what to do,” Hanzo said. The stance Reinhardt took was surely deliberately sloppy. He rolled his eyes, but took the bait anyway, “Feet perpendicular to the target, pelvis forward. Hold the arrow with three fingers - the arrow rest is there for a reason, so use it. When you draw, keep your forearm straight and your thumbs down. Don’t hold it for too long.”

Reinhardt did everything but draw the bow, “How will I know how far back to pull before it snaps?”

Hanzo exhaled sharply. He would need to draw further than his arm could reach for a bow of such quality to break, it was designed for battle and was quite literally priceless. Still, he could humor Reinhardt, as he was quite sure Reinhardt was humoring him. A quick judgement, and Hanzo held up his hand a little behind them, “Draw until you feel my hand.”

When his elbow brushed Hanzo’s palm, Reinhardt loosed his arrow like it was the trigger of a gun. It hit the back wall with a solid thunk, only slightly more off target than his worst bullet. He looked to Hanzo in appeal; he nodded once.

“Not bad,” Hanzo said with almost no hesitation, “Perhaps you should reconsider your weapon of choice. They say you are never too old to learn something new.”

Reinhardt hummed with amusement; he patted Hanzo’s hand when he passed his bow back, “Only if you promise to take up my hammer.”

“I doubt I could pick it up, let alone take it up,” Hanzo said dryly, and Reinhardt’s laugh was louder than his hand-cannon. 

 

\--

 

“What are you doing up here alone?” Hanzo asked, leaning over the prone form of Reinhardt sprawled out on his sub-roof hiding spot.

“I am working on my tan, of course,” Reinhardt said. He was wearing nothing but a pair of red swimming trunks and a mildly incredulous look as he lifted his sunglasses to peer up at Hanzo, “And I am not alone. You are here.”

He had only just arrived but it didn’t escape Hanzo’s notice that on any other day, he would have been there already. It just so happened he got waylaid by Zenyatta en route; Hanzo had asked him to keep him up to date on Genji, who hadn’t been on base much. Reinhardt had been waiting for him, for whatever reason. Hanzo perched on the edge of the roof with his back to Reinhardt and the sun, and enjoyed the heat of both of them on his bare shoulders.

“Sunbathing causes premature aging, you know,” he said as he squinted out at the glittering ocean. He kicked his feet idly.

“I have done nothing premature in my life,” Reinhardt protested. Hanzo exhaled sharply through his nose, leant back on his hands.

“Not even when you retired?” Hanzo asked. If Reinhardt could have seen his face, it would have been the picture of innocence - he knew it was a tender subject. There was a long moment of several indignant noises behind him.

“Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean I won’t toss you right off this roof,” Reinhardt said. He sounded perfectly sulky.

“I do not believe that for a second,” Hanzo said, “And stop flexing before you hurt yourself. I’m not even looking.”

“Bah! You don’t know what’s good for you,” Reinhardt grumbled. Hanzo’s straight face couldn’t last. 

 

\--

 

 

“Hanzo Shimada,” Reinhardt began with a great deal of gravitas, enough so that Hanzo actually felt a curious prickle of anxiety like he was about to get scolded. It lasted only a moment though; he knew Reinhardt would never raise his voice in anger at him. He stopped, swayed a little on the spot as he tried to remember what he was going to say, “Do you-- do you dance?”

Hanzo furrowed his brow. When he thought of dancing, he was reminded of a time when he was still a boy, and Genji had come bounding into the room, so desperately eager to show father the  _ suzume odori _ \- sparrow’s dance - his tutor had shown him in his history lesson. He had made his own little fans out of carefully folded coloured paper - how they had flashed so prettily as he bounced around the room, laughing, trying to keep up with whatever rhythm he had set in his own head. Hanzo, caught up in Genji’s perfect enthusiasm, began to clap to keep time for his brother. 

He stopped when he saw the look on father’s face: such tomfoolery was  _ not _ part of the curriculum. Hanzo had rescued one of the fans from the trashcan later, kept it in a box under his bed for years along with a thousand other memories, but he was quite sure Genji never saw that tutor again.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think I do.”

“Would you like to? I would like to. I would like to dance with you,” Reinhardt said, “You are...so strong, and so graceful. You must dance like an angel. Come, my friend, come and dance with me.”

Hanzo stared at Reinhardt’s open, offered hand. They weren’t on a base anywhere, this was civilian territory, quite literally the middle of the street. It had been Pharah’s birthday; she’d wanted to go to a rock bar in one of the nearby towns, a one-off blow-out since things with Talon had been off the radar for a while. Hanzo had shown up late after deliberating whether he should go at all, and by the time he’d gotten there, Reinhardt was already deep in his cups. With a great deal of perseverance on his part, they’d just about caught up with each other by closing time.

“We don’t have any music,” Hanzo protested mildly even as he slipped his hand into Reinhardt’s. He was immediately pulled flush against the man’s chest, one hand at the small of his spine, the other cupping the back of his neck. He didn’t know what to do, where to put his own hands, how to move his feet. In fact he, he had to remind himself to even breathe.

“Hm? Well then, we shall make music!” Reinhardt began to sing - or, well, something like it. It was mostly a chorus of unintelligible noises, lots of humming, plenty of ‘la di da’ and ‘do si do’. Hanzo recognised it as whatever he’d been singing in the kitchen, that night he had shared his meal with him. No rhythm, of course, but his movements were slow and smooth as he began to sway, Hanzo cradled in his arms. 

It was strange, and embarrassing, and stupid, and impossibly, utterly charming. He told himself he would never be doing this without so much cheap Spanish beer, but he didn’t believe his own lie. He was not a small man, but in Reinhardt’s gentle hands he felt...delicate. Cherished and lovely. He let his head rest against his broad chest, his arms looped around his waist but his hands still couldn’t meet; he could feel the rumble of his humming under his cheek, the heat of his body, the steady and reassuring beat of his heart. Was that not everything about Reinhardt? Steady and reassuring. 

They swung in wide, lazy circles like a waltz, and it was easy to forget that they were still in public, that any night-owl could peek out their window and see them. Hanzo found it very hard to care whether they were seen or not in that moment. Nothing else in the world seemed to matter as they spun, and spun, and spun--

The room was still spinning when Hanzo woke up alone in his own bed, wearing what he had on the night before. His head was pounding, his mouth tasted like he’d been sucking on bar mats. He propped himself up on his elbows and blinked through the wave of dizziness that washed over him; it was not too unlike the rush of giddiness he’d felt dancing with Reinhardt, he realised, as memories of the evening before began to trickle back to him. He flopped down on the pillows again, cheeks burning as the room gave another unpleasant turn. He knew which spinning he preferred.

 

\--

 

“I wish you could have met me in my prime,” Reinhardt said, unexpectedly. Hanzo’s hand paused on the handle of the water ladle, just as he was about to pour a little more over the coals of the steam room they were in. They’d been relaxing in companionable silence for a while, so he didn’t know what prompted Reinhardt to say such a thing.

“I am sitting right here, am I not,” Hanzo said after a moment. The coals sizzled as the water sluiced over them, steam rising in a helpfully obscuring cloud.

“When I was a young man, I was quite the sight to behold,” Reinhardt said. Hanzo knew. He’d seen the pictures and he agreed quite wholeheartedly. Normally he wouldn’t care to indulge vanity - they were both handsome men and they knew it - but there was a curious sincerity to Reinhardt’s voice that gave him pause.

“Wilhelm, if you think you have in...any way been diminished by age, then you are quite mistaken,” Hanzo said. He turned his head by degrees so he could watch him out the corner of his eye, “What has brought this on?”

Reinhardt’s brows were pinched in an expression that Hanzo wasn’t immediately familiar with, certainly not on his face. He didn’t say anything for a long, drawn out moment, but the warmth in the way he looked at him spoke volumes. 

“Sometimes an old man doesn’t realise how old he is, until he meets someone who makes him feel young again,” Reinhardt said. Hanzo was glad for the heat; it hid the blush that would surely be creeping up his neck, as if he too was a teenager again. He looked away, suddenly very interested in the hem of the towel draped over his lap. 

“You still have a full head of hair,” he said eventually. It took an astounding amount of effort to move his hand, to let it slide across the few inches of space on the bench between them. His knuckles brushed Reinhardt’s covered thigh, and he glanced up to meet his weighty gaze, “That’s more than some of your younger counterparts can say.”

Their commander didn’t deserve the slight, but Reinhardt’s smile breaking through the hazy uncertainty was worth it. His laugh has warm, and the hand that found Hanzo’s was warmer.

 

\--

 

Moonlight carved columns through the darkness of the room; Hanzo stood in one of them, hands braced on the windowsill, light pooling in his hair and the folds of his silk robe. It was quiet inside and out - most of the city had been evacuated already. They’d be advancing in the morning. That was only a few hours away. Hanzo should have been asleep: they all should have been.

“What are you doing still up?” Reinhardt’s voice was as soft as his footsteps as he came into the room they shared - that was to say, surprisingly. He shut the door behind him.

“I cannot sleep,” Hanzo admitted, “I don’t know why.”

“Nervous?” 

One of the beds groaned under the weight that sank onto it. Hanzo half turned, shook his head, “You?”

“Never.”

Hanzo smiled at the darkness. He almost believed it. He could barely make out the rugged mountains of Reinhardt’s shape even as he was surely looking right at him; his eyes refused to adjust while he was still standing in the light. He looked away, crossed his arms over his chest, leant against the windowsill again. The breeze that coiled through the broken glass at his back was a welcome one, eager to sooth the humid heat. He could feel that he was being watched. Perspiration beaded on his neck, slid down to meet the collar of his robe.

They were waiting for something, and it wasn’t what the dawn would bring.

“Hanzo,” Reinhardt began, and there was something about the way he said it that raised the hairs on his arms, like one of Satya’s energy projections passing by too closely, “Let down your hair for me.”

Hanzo hand was already moving before he could think twice. He worked the ribbon free, let it wind in a spool on the windowsill where he left it. His dark hair fell about his face, only a little past his jaw, not long enough to reach his shoulders. He resisted the urge to straighten it with his fingers, to preen under Reinhardt’s attention.

“Now your robe,“ Reinhardt said, carefully, like he was defusing a bomb with only his words, “Take it off. Let me see you.”

The knot in the sash fell apart at a touch; Hanzo let it slip from his shoulders to catch coquettishly on his elbows, framing his naked body in sea green silk just for a moment before it pooled at his feet with a whisper. He wondered if he should have felt shy, or apprehensive, or vulnerable - he didn’t. It had been a long time since anyone had seen all the secret, hidden parts of himself, inside and out, but baring it all to Reinhardt felt like the easiest thing in the world.

There was a noise in the dark like a sharp inhale of breath; mattress springs creaked a little as Reinhardt shifted. Hanzo wondered if he was leaning forward, trying to get a better look. 

“Please,” Reinhardt said, a half-hitch in his voice like it had caught in his throat, but Hanzo was already going to him. He knelt on the edge of the bed, crawled up between Reinhardt’s legs. Strong hands slipped under his arms and pulled him up the last stretch, folding him into his lap like he weighed nothing at all. There was a quiet thrill in it, being handled by one of the few men he’d ever met who could break him, and one of the few men he’d ever met who he could trust completely not never harm a hair on his head. There had never been such a perfect overlap in the Venn diagram before. 

“You are breathtaking,” Reinhardt said, and from his position, straddling those ample thighs as he was draped across his chest with his face pushed at his neck, Hanzo could feel it more than he could hear it, “So strong, so graceful.”

_ So strong, so graceful. _ Reinhardt had said that the second time Hanzo had let him try his bow. He’d said it when he’d caught him by one of his metal ankles on their roof and carefully examine his dainty prosthetics. He’d said it when they had danced, drunk and happy down the middle of Irish Town. Hanzo believed him then, he believed him now. 

He fisted his hands in the worn cotton of Reinhardt's t-shirt, turned his head, found his lips in the darkness. Their kiss didn’t feel like a first kiss, it felt like a comma in a story he already knew. It was a gentle give-and-take, almost chaste in its tenderness, well-balanced and easy. There was no crush of noses, no painful click of teeth. Reinhardt kissed him like he knew every inch of his mouth already.

“You’re still dressed,” Hanzo noted as he broke apart by inches, up on his knees so he could press his forehead against Reinhardt’s. He didn’t want to move away too far, not to talk, not to breathe; he bracketed his face in his hands, brushed his thumbs over rosy cheeks and into his wiry beard. Reinhardt’s lashes fluttered at the tender touch.

“Don’t worry about that, just let me-- let me--” Reinhardt trailed off as he pressed a kiss to Hanzo’s neck, followed a path of his own making from there along the slope of his shoulder. One hand gripped his ass, squeezing gently, encouraging Hanzo to rock against him; the other slid up his torso to his chest, exploring the swell of his breast, the encroaching softness of his stomach. Hanzo couldn’t help the shiver that ran through him: ten men couldn’t touch him all at once like that, not the way Reinhardt could. He felt encompassed, surrounded, anchored - but there was one place Reinhardt seemed to be conspicuously avoiding.

“Wilhelm,” Hanzo said with a light tug on the wrist of the hand caressing his chest, “Touch me.”

“All in good time,” came the response that made Hanzo grunt in frustration, “Don’t worry, I won’t tease you more than I have to. Just relax, Hanzo. I will take good care of you.”

A thumb rolled over one of his pebbled nipples, pulling an involuntary gasp from his lips. He pressed forward into another kiss, this one deeper, more heady, an effort to silence himself; he could feel Reinhardt smile into it. That smile only grew further as hands, warm and dry, explored the rest of him freely; fingertips tracing the seam of his prosthetics, pads brushing the soft skin behind his ears and at the crease of his thighs, blunted nails gently scratching his scalp, his back, his neck like one might pet a sated dog. Anyone else and he would have bent those fingers back ‘til breaking point - anyone but Reinhardt. 

Hanzo leaned into those hands whenever he could, taking what he could get and inviting more. His cock was hard, leaking, a dark smear left on Reinhardt’s grey tshirt where it was trapped between them. His rocking had taken on a desperate edge, less a grind and more a rut, so eager for friction. Even if it wasn’t enough, it was still good; Reinhardt’s body was soft but unyielding, warm and solid and perfect. 

“Do you want me to beg for it?” Hanzo asked, grazing Reinhardt’s bottom lip with his teeth, “Because I won’t.”

“I don’t want you to beg for anything,” Reinhardt said, and Hanzo could hear the smile in his voice with his eyes closed. He was shifted, pushed and pulled into a new position; he went limp as required, let himself be rearranged until he was no longer straddling Reinhardt’s thighs, but was laid across his lap, cradled to his chest, “I want you to savor it. Impatience is a young man’s game, Hanzo; we are not young men.”

Hanzo wanted to laugh at him, to curl his lip and say  _ speak for yourself, _ but then Reinhardt kissed the crown of his head at the exact same moment he wrapped a hand around his aching cock and he was trapped, caught between two soft points. He didn’t try and stop the moan that escaped him this time, but he did try to rock his hips, wanting to fuck Reinhardt’s fist; the arm around his waist stopped him, held him down with bear-paw of a hand on his thigh. Reinhardt made a shushing noise that was half-lost in his hair when Hanzo arched in protest, but when he began to stroke him in firm, slow pulls, Hanzo didn’t have the heart to fuss any further.

He dropped his head against Reinhardt’s chest, tried to relax into it, let himself go loose-limbed. It was hard to consciously unclench his entire body, to stop pushing and chasing the threads of pleasure that ran through the core of him with every stroke. He did as Reinhardt wanted him to, he savored it, the broad body beneath him, every point of connection between them, the hand that encompassed his cock completely - warm, but no longer dry, slicked with his own precum. He put his hand on Reinhardt’s arm, not to stop him or even encourage him, but just to feel the way his muscles tensed and shifted as he stroked him off.

“Wilhelm,” Hanzo said, and it came out as a half-sigh, an insubstantial wispy warning. Reinhardt’s response was something in German he couldn’t understand, but he liked the way it rolled off of his tongue and down the back of Hanzo’s neck. He was close, so close that he couldn’t stop the way his hips twitched or his metal toes curled. The unintelligible words in his ear were soft and urgent:  _ let go, let go, let go _ .

Hanzo came with his head tossed back, his eyes closed, Reinhardt’s name shamelessly spilling from his lips like he spilled over his fingers. The intensity of it winded him, not just the usual spike and release of pressure in his gut, but a rush that was pulled from every part of him, washing over him in waves. Reinhardt kept stroking him through his tremorous aftershocks, but stopped before Hanzo had to ask him to. 

He wiped his hand on the bedsheets; Hanzo should have been disgusted but he couldn’t make himself care. It felt as though all the nervous energy had been bled out of him, and he was an once both light as a feather and lead-limbed. He half-turned, arched up against Reinhardt so he could kiss whatever part of him he could reach - his cheek, his nose, the corner of his mouth. He pushed a hand between them, deft fingers slipping beneath the waistband of the shorts Reinhardt was still wearing for whatever maddening reason, but his was stopped.

He made a nose of confusion that Reinhardt swallowed in a kiss, “Not tonight. After the mission.”

“I don’t like playing games,” Hanzo said, but moved his hand away. Reinhardt pulled the thin blanket over the top of both of them. It was warm enough that they didn’t really need it, especially as tangled up as they still were, but the light weight cover was comforting. 

“It’s not a game,” Reinhardt said, his thumb brushing the back of Hanzo’s damp neck, fingers carding through his loose hair as it spilled over his chest, “Consider it one more thing to fight for.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi at [brood-mother](http://brood-mother.tumblr.com/) if you want.


End file.
